We had an amazing time at Notch selling out picnic fair that our program partners created. If you haven't been to Notch it is worth at the minimum one pint of your time. They specialize in low ABV European style beer. Our only problem of the night was that we sold out of our food too fast.

For the past couple of weeks we have started delivering warm dinners to go on Wednesdays with great success. This week we are offering Cioppino, an Italian fish stew. The first step to making a good stew is making a good stock. In class we broke down black bass so we could use the bones to make stock and the meat will be added later when we build the stew.

In anticipation of our cafe opening in mid September we are working hard on developing our menu items. In this pursuit we took our savory granola and married them with melted marshmallow. Now we have a sweet, savory and spiced snack good for anytime of the day.

Team Root had a great visit to one of our many community partners, The Food Project in Lynn. Here we had a tour of the farm, an excellent lunch made with offerings from their garden and some funny stories from the students!

Team Root had a great time cooking at L'Espalier last night during a fundraiser for our capital campaign. In the foreground is Joe, one of our new program parters who helped to prepare, plate and serve some of our offerings last. It was a great experience that helped reinforce our kitchen lessons in a real world setting.

We know that we want a ba´nh mi sandwich on our cafe menu but the question was what direction to take it. The original calls for shredded pork and pork liver pate´, while delicious I'm not sure how well it would sell hear in Salem. My answer was to combine the two pork elements and create a country pork pate´seasoned with ginger, garlic and lemongrass. If you wanted to call it an Asian meatloaf I would not be offended. A smear of sriracha aioli, some fresh and pickled vegetables to round it out.

Toss onions, peppers and cauliflower together in a bowl. Simmer the vinegar, sugar, turmeric, mustard seed and poppy seeds for 5 minutes. Pack the jars with the raw vegetables--giving a little room at the top to allow expansion.Pour hot liquid over vegetables. Loosely place lid on jar until it cools. Tighten lid when cool. Refrigerate.

When our cafe opens I anticipate juicing a lot of carrots for our fresh juice offerings. This leaves me with the question, 'What do I do with all of the leftover carrot pulp?' My answer right now is to dehydrate it and add it to a savory curry granola. Great by itself or sprinkled on top of a salad.

In an effort to keep at least my mind warm during the winter, I have been working on a bbq recipe for this summer's farmer's markets'. I don't have a recipe yet but I do know that starting with fresh, whole ingredients changes the idea of bbq sauce for the better. Instead of leading with corn syrup or vinegar we will focus on the natural sweet & sour complexity of tomatoes.

Root

Our goal is to transform the lives of low income, high-risk young adults by teaching them quality work and important life skills through food service training so that they become employed and self-sufficient.